Presidency Considers Upward Review of Political Office Holders’ Salaries

Amid worsening economic crisis across the country, the Revenue Mobilisation Allocation and Fiscal Commission (RMAFC), responsible for Nigeria’s revenue monitoring, has said plans are ongoing to review the salaries of political office holders in Nigeria.

The Commission describes the current earnings as inadequate, unrealistic, and outdated in the face of rising “responsibilities and economic challenges.”

The Chairman of the Commission, Mohammed Shehu, disclosed at a press briefing in Abuja on Monday that President Bola Tinubu presently earns N1.5m monthly, while ministers receive less than N1m, figures that have remained unchanged since 2008. According to him, these need to change.

“You are paying the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria N1.5m a month, with a population of over 200 million people. Everybody believes that it is a joke,” Shehu said.

He added, “You cannot pay a minister less than N1m per month since 2008 and expect him to put in his best without necessarily being involved in some other things. You pay either a CBN governor or the DG ten times more than you pay the President. That is just not right. Or you pay him [the head of an agency] twenty times higher than the Attorney-General of the Federation. That is absolutely not right.”

But the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) kicked against the plans by the RMAFC to review upward the salaries of political office holders, saying the proposal ignores the country’s worsening inequality and the hidden perks that already inflate earnings in government.

The NLC pushed back, insisting that the real problem is not the official salary figures but the allowances and perks of office that remain hidden from public view.

“The President’s salary may be about N1.5m a month, but when allowances are added, the total package can exceed N100 million,” an NLC high-ranking official who did not want his name mentioned due to a lack of authorisation to speak on the matter, told The PUNCH.

“Allowances for medical care, housing, digital services, internet access, security, travel, and even COVID-related expenses are all buried in the system. If the government can publish the president’s salary, then it should also publish these allowances, because that is where the true burden lies.”

Nigerian workers are still grappling with the high cost of living, making it difficult to survive on the minimum wage, even as inflation shows signs of easing.

Data from the National Bureau of Statistics revealed that the country’s headline inflation rate fell for the fourth straight month in July 2025, moderating to 21.88 per cent from 22.22 per cent in June.

Food inflation remained a pressing concern at 22.74 per cent year-on-year, although this was significantly lower than the 39.53 per cent recorded in July 2024.

The union accused political leaders of living in luxury while millions of citizens sink deeper into poverty.

It cited claims that senators and House of Representatives members earn up to N30m monthly, while civil servants are paid a minimum wage of N70,000, and professors take home less than N400,000.

“This inequality has destroyed the middle class and pushed millions into poverty, leaving citizens frustrated and disillusioned,” the official stated.

The union said the cost of governance was being inflated by frequent foreign trips and overseas medical care for top officials, for which they still receive allowances. It argued that the billions spent on perks should instead go into equipping local hospitals, fixing schools, and creating jobs.

“Good leadership requires sensitivity to the people’s plight. If politicians continue to prioritise themselves over the nation, this country risks imploding. And if that happens, even the elite will not have a country to fall back on,” the executive warned.

Meanwhile, speaking at the event, a renowned Professor of Finance & Capital Market, Professor Uche Uwaleke, insisted that any additional funds allocated to states must be ring-fenced for capital projects.

“Nothing stops us from also saying the extra money we want to push to states now, we can also ring-fence those funds so that when they go to those states, we are sure of what the funds are going into.

“Now that states take care of electricity, for example, they also have the mandate to go into electricity. That’s infrastructure. We can say, and railways, we can say the extra money should be for infrastructure funds,” Uwaleke argued.

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